Hillsboro Hops: Coaching staff features some familiar faces for local baseball fans

View full sizeFormer Major League Baseball pitcher Doug Drabek is in his fourth year as a minor league coach in the Arizona Diamondbacks organization. He'll serve as the Hillsboro Hops pitching coach this season. Jordan Megenhardt/Arizona Diamondbacks

The coaching staff for the Hillsboro Hops includes some names baseball fans will certainly recognize – especially Hillsboro baseball fans.

Along with former Cy Young Award winner Doug Drabek, who will serve as the Hops' pitching coach, former Glencoe star Ben Petrick will also join the coaching staff as a player consultant coach.

The Hops will also have two up-and-coming coaches in the Arizona Diamondbacks system that local baseball fans will soon get to know. Drabek and Petrick will be joined by manager Audo Vicente and hitting coach J.R. House.

Diamondbacks director of player development Mike Bell gave high marks to all of the Hops' coaches, saying they epitomize the organization's emphasis on winning while developing future big leaguers.

Bell said Vicente is a coach who could easily find himself at a higher level. He said Drabek's credentials speak for themselves. And he called House "one of the hardest-working and most energetic guys that we have."

"It's a great staff," Bell said. "I think Hillsboro will enjoy them. I know they make our players better."

Vicente said having former elite players like Drabek molding the Diamondbacks' youngsters is one reason Arizona's minor league system has been so successful. Three of the Diamondbacks' minor league teams won league championships last year, Triple-A Reno, Double-A Mobile and Class-A Missoula.

"It was a really fun year for our Diamondbacks family," Vicente said. "You've got to give credit to our scouts all around the country and in other countries, too. They go out and try to pick the best guys as prospects."

Vicente has spent his entire professional career with the Diamondbacks organization, starting as a minor league player in 1998. He managed the Yakima Bears (now the Hops) the past two seasons, leading them to a Northwest League playoff berth last year, and has managed in Visalia, Missoula and their Dominican Republic affiliate in Boca Chica.

"I'm really happy here, it's really exciting when you do everything possible to make a player better," Vicente said. "That's the most rewarding part as a coaching staff when a guy gets called up or he makes a deal in the big leagues. You really don't forget about that. The thing is, I consider the Diamondbacks a family. Out there, I don't really know anybody. I have a buddy in every organization, but the way they treat me here it's a first class organization all around."

Drabek is back in the minors more than 24 years after the 1990 Cy Young Award winner rode his last minor league bus.

He joined the Diamondbacks' minor league coaching staff in 2010 as a pitching coach for the Bears. He pitched in the big leagues for 12 years with five teams.

"It's a little different, a little different," Drabek said. "It was baseball. Getting used to the bus rides again, that wasn't bad. To me it kind of came natural. For me, it really wasn't that big of an adjustment."

After retiring from baseball after the 1998 season, Drabek never strayed too far from the game. He coached his son, Kyle, currently a pitcher in the Toronto Blue Jays organization, in the youth ranks. He said he needed something else to occupy his time after his kids left the house.

"You can only play so much golf," Drabek said. "I wanted to get back into the game. You know, it's fun."

Drabek also said it helps to be coaching in an organization that places so much emphasis on player development and winning at the minor league level. "I think the one thing is we get along well together," said Drabek, who was part of Vicente's staff in Yakima in 2010 before spending the last two years in Class-A advanced Visalia the past two seasons. "And there's a lot of joking around and stuff, but there's also a lot of collaborating on guys. The D-backs have allowed the coaches to have some input, right or wrong, used or not used, they give you the chance to say, 'What do you think?' I think it's worked out real well."

Drabek said coaching in Class-A, a level in which many of the players are in their first season of professional baseball, has a set of challenges all its own. But he said that means the input he provides as a coach has so much more of an impact.

"Everybody's got something that they need to work on, but it's fun working with them and watching them catch onto the idea and kind of ironing it out and stuff," Drabek said. "I think as a coach that's one of the most fun parts is seeing them catch onto an idea and buy into it and then having success with it."

In his Cy Young season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Drabek posted a 2.76 earned run average and a 22-6 record. He led the Pirates to the National League Championship Series three times, 1990-92, and won 155 games in his career. And even though some of the players he works with weren't even in kindergarten when he last pitched in the big leagues, Drabek said he's never had a problem gaining the players' respect.

He never has to remind them that the highest honor a pitcher can earn is sitting in his trophy case.

"I definitely wouldn't do that," he said. "I think the other part of it is they're willing to listen and try things out."

House is a bit greener in his coaching career. After finishing his playing career in 2011, House joined the Diamondbacks and served as Missoula's hitting instructor last year. He spent 12 years in the minor leagues, and said he knows just what players are going through.

He said coaching at the Class-A level presents challenges for coaches not just on the field but off as well.

"The more they learn, the more they know and the less baby-sitting stuff you have to do and they can just go out and play and you can teach them the technique of it, the mental side of it," House said. "But when they're younger, like we're dealing with, you really have to help them grow up as human beings. They're dealing with anything from being away from home for the first time, to girlfriend troubles, who knows what could happen."

Last year, House was part of Missoula's Pioneer League championship team.

"It's always going to be about player development because that's what the minor leagues are, but at the same time the best way to develop players is to make them into winning players," House said. "You can't make winning players unless you win, and postseason brings out the best and worst in guys and you want to see what they're made of."

All three coaches said they expect to field a winner when the season starts June 14. But Drabek said fans will also have to remember it is Class-A and the players are improving every day.

"One thing to keep in mind is all these kids are improving on something, working on something and at the same time trying to go out and still win," Drabek said. "You're probably going to see some things, where it's like, 'Oh my gosh, you're in pro ball.' But a lot of these kids out of high school and maybe out of college, it's just a lot different."

Petrick will make his return to professional baseball as a member of the coaching staff.

Petrick, a former Colorado Rockies catcher, is making his return to professional baseball after he was forced to retire in 2004 because of his battles with early-onset Parkinson's disease.

"It's kind of a cool deal for me," Petrick said.

Petrick was once regarded as one of baseball's top catching prospects. He played for six years in the major leagues, five with the Rockies, before being forced from the game as his illness worsened. He will assist Hops players in acclimating to life as a professional baseball player.

"They just want me to be around and do everything I can to help the young players," he said. "I just want to get to know the players and help them feel comfortable to ask advice from me."

Petrick said the opportunity to join the Hops staff arose when he ran into Bell, the director of player development for the Diamondbacks, during the groundbreaking of the Hops' new stadium at the Gordon Faber Recreation Complex. Petrick said Bell emailed him a few weeks later to see if he would be interested in taking on the new role.